That fall, the Black Knights of Army were the class of the nation. Mark Beech, a second-generation West Pointer, recounts this memorable and never-to-be-repeated season with:- Pete Dawkins, the Heisman Trophy winner who rose to the rank of Brigadier General - The long-reclusive Bill Carpenter, the fabled "lonesome end" who earned the Distinguished Service Cross for saving his company in Vietnam - Red Blaik, who led Army back to glory after the cribbing scandal and had the field at Michie Stadium named in his honorCombining the triumph of The Junction Boys with the heroics of The Long Gray Line, Beech captures a unique period in the history of football, the military, and mid-twentieth-century America.

    Now the true inside story of the sports agent business is exposed as never before.During baseball's evolution from national pastime to a $3.6 billion business, the game's agents have played a pivotal role in driving and (some might say) ruining the sport. In a world of unchecked egos and minimal regulation, client-stealing and financial inducements have become commonplace, leading many to label the field a cesspool, devoid of loyalties and filled with predators.Matt Sosnick entered these shark-infested waters in 1997, leaving a job as CEO of a San Francisco high-tech company to represent ballplayers--and hoping to do so while keeping his romantic love of baseball and his integrity intact. License to Deal follows Sosnick as he deals with his up-and-coming clients (his most famous is the 2003 rookie-of-the-year pitching sensation Dontrelle Willis). We become privy to never-before-disclosed stories behind the rise of baseball's most powerful agent, Scott Boras. And we get a novel perspective on the art of the deal and the economics of baseball.By one of baseball's most respected sportswriters, who is now ESPN.com's lead Insider baseball reporter, License to Deal, like Michael Lewis's bestselling Moneyball, will provide fuel for many a heated baseball discussion.

     The biggest paradox in golf is that the harder you try to "hit" the ball, the worse you do so. In The Keys to the Effortless Golf Swing, Michael McTeigue offers a simple system of sequential body movements that produces a true swinging motion with every club in the bag. The result is increased distance and greater accuracy for all sizes, shapes, and ages of golfers for a minimum of investment in learning time. The clarity and simplicity of McTeigue's frill-free approach to the golf swing leads the reader to a new experience of power and effortlessness. He truly shows "how to build a swing you can trust and keep for life."

    In this compilation all focused around the four letter word that has ended more wrestling careers than steroids, pills and alcohol combined: HEAT!HEAT: A dark cloud that follows a wrestler after a personal conflict or misunderstanding between two individuals or more backstage.JTG will take you, the reader, on a journey, from the beginning of his career, to the final curtain call; sharing stories on how he battled Heat from day one. Join JTG on this epic pilgrimage through this blazing inferno that was his career, while managing to piss off more people for writing this book!!!

    Who's the greatest quarterback of all time, Joe Montana or Tom Brady? Brett Favre? Who was the most dominate linebacker, Lawrence Taylor or Dick Butkus? Was Deion Sanders better than Ronnie Lott? Are the Packers of Steelers the greatest franchise ever? Sports Illustrated has polled its pro football experts to determine the Top 10 in more than 20 categories. The rankings appear alongside stirring photography and classic stories from SI's archives. This is the best of the NFL's best, or more simply, FOOTBALL'S GREATEST.

    memorable and distinctive.' The Irish TimesBefore Jim McGuinness took over as manager of the Donegal senior football team in the summer of 2010, they were in GAA wilderness. When he stepped down just over four years later, the same group of players had won three Ulster championships, the All-Ireland title of 2012 and succeeded in overturning a century-old perception of how Gaelic football should be played. His departure also marked the end of a personal odyssey, which had begun almost three decades earlier and weathered the aftermath of two family tragedies.A sports classic, Until Victory Always is both an unforgettable account of McGuinness's years at the helm of the Donegal team and a moving testament to the power of sport to sustain us in our darkest moments.'A story about how the rawness of grief could end up inspiring not just a man but a county. The story is good; the prose is better.' The Sunday Times'This compulsively readable, deeply involving book transcends the sports genre by vividly portraying a fiercely passionate, hugely ambitious and utterly uncompromising figure.' The Sunday Business Post'A story of inspiration, dedication and courage.' The Sunday Independent

    Yet lost are the stories on the other side of these history-making moments, the athletes who experienced not transcendent glory but crushing disappointment: the cornerback who missed the tackle on the big touchdown; the relief pitcher who lost the series; the world-record holding Olympian who fell on the ice.In Losing Isn’t Everything, famed sportscaster Curt Menefee, joined by bestselling writer Michael Arkush, examines a range of signature "disappointments" from the wide world of sports, interviewing the subject at the heart of each loss and uncovering what it means—months, years, or decades later—to be associated with failure. While history is written by the victorious, Menefee argues that these moments when an athlete has fallen short are equally valuable to sports history, offering deep insights into the individuals who suffered them and about humanity itself.Telling the losing stories behind such famous moments as the Patriots’ Rodney Harrison guarding the Giants' David Tyree during the "Helmet Catch" in Super Bowl XLII, Mary Decker’s fall in the 1984 Olympic 1500m, and Craig Ehlo who gave up "The Shot" to Michael Jordan in the 1989 NBA playoffs, Menefee examines the legacy of the hardest loses, revealing the unique path that athletes have to walk after they lose on their sport’s biggest stage. Shedding new light some of the most accepted scapegoat stories in the sports cannon, he also revisits both the Baltimore Colts' loss to the Jets in Super Bowl III, as well as the Red Sox loss in the 1986 World Series, showing why, despite years of humiliation, it might not be all Bill Buckner's fault.Illustrated with sixteen pages of color photos, this considered and compassionate study offers invaluable lessons about pain, resilience, disappointment, remorse, and acceptance that can help us look at our lives and ourselves in a profound new way.

    The Cleveland Cavaliers' star has appeared on the cover of Sports Illustrated, has had his high school jersey retired, and signed a $90 million contract with Nike. His future is truly bright.

    The station manager who hired him was the first to recognize his considerable on-air talent, and helped start what has become a legendary radio career. Often compared to Howard Stern, Carton has hosted a series of highly rated shows, and in 2007 he joined WFAN, where he and Boomer Esiason host an eponymous show every morning for four hours out of a studio in New York City.In this debut book, Carton invites the reader to join him as he recounts tales from his suburban youth, defends his long-held love affair with the New York Jets, reminisces about the shenanigans of some of the highest paid and most celebrated athletes playing today, and reflects on his work as one of radio’s craftiest, most hilarious personalities ever to get behind the microphone.

    It was the triumph fans had been waiting fifty-two years for, and it wasn't easy to get there--but thanks to LeBron James, an audacious plan to build a winning team, a couple of maverick GMs, and an incredible community of fans, it happened; and 2016 saw the birth of a new Cavaliers dynasty.But how did they get there? It was a roller-coaster ride from tragedy to triumph, one that Jason Lloyd, a longtime Northeast Ohio resident turned reporter for the Akron Beacon Journal, got to see firsthand. He was witness to the Blueprint, as he calls it, which the Cavs put together to win their star player back from Miami and build a team that could win the ultimate championship. It incorporated several losing seasons, some high-risk draft picks, and an entirely new understanding of how to build a championship team.The best part of the plan is that it worked, culminating in the most exciting Finals series in NBA history. And, most important, the end of the Cleveland Curse. Jason Lloyd, a true insider, tells the story of how the NBA really works, and how everyone--from the front office to the stars on the court to the new generation of coaches--worked together to create an unforgettable winning team.

     In his fifty years of coaching football at Penn State, Joe Paterno has become one of the most popular figures in American sports. Only one other coach has won more football games than Paterno; his team has won more bowl games than any other; and he does it all the way it was meant to be done, with his players succeeding in the classroom as well as on the field and in the pro ranks. Along the way, Paterno has transformed a once obscure agricultural college into a huge research university in the Big Ten, whose endowment now exceeds $1 billion, tens of millions of which "JoePa" has personally helped to raise. But lately the tide seems to have turned in Happy Valley. Since 2000, Paterno’s Nittany Lions have lost more games than they’ve won, and accusations of off-the-field crimes have tarnished his program’s reputation. Award-winning sports reporter Frank Fitzgerald followed Joe Paterno and his Nittany Lions through the 2004 season, from fundraisers in State College to the sidelines at Beaver Stadium. The Lion in Autumn delivers the complete story of this frustrating, tormenting, and ultimately exhilarating turning-point season and the history that led up to it. This is the chronicle of fifty phenomenal years—including the dynasties of undefeated and national championship teams that came before—and a riveting fight to reclaim a legacy.

    Teams were losing games very suspiciously during the regular season to enhance their draft position. And who wouldn't, when the draft featured four future members of the Top 50 NBA Players of All Time team-Hakeem Olajuwon, Charles Barkley, John Stockton, and Michael Jordan. But this draft is most often remembered as the one where Michael Jordan slipped to third and was a reason the lottery system was introduced the next year. How could the experts have been so wrong and, even more astoundingly, how could the Portland Trailblazers, who held the second pick, pass on Jordan and choose the injury-prone Sam Bowie? Filip Bondy sets out to answer that question and many more. Talking to general managers, coaches, and players, Bondy provides the entire back story of the draft: trades that were never made; wrong-headed assessments of players like Charles Barkley and John Stockton, and how Bobby Knight, coach of the 1984 U.S. Olympic team, played a major role in advising certain teams about key players.

    Stuck in a rut, baseball was dying. Then Steinbrenner bought the Yankees, a second-division club with wife-swapping pitchers, leaving the House That Ruth Built not with a slam but a simper. He vowed not to interfere—before soon changing his mind. Across town, Tom Seaver led the Mets’ stellar pitching line-up, and iconic outfielder Willie Mays was preparing to say goodbye. For months, the Mets, under Yogi Berra, couldn’t get it right. Meanwhile, the A’s were breaking a ban on facial hair while maverick owner Charlie Finley was fighting to keep them underpaid. But beneath the muttonchops and mayhem, lay another world. Elvis commanded a larger audience than the Apollo landings. A Dodge Dart cost $2,800, gas was a quarter per gallon. A fiscal crisis loomed; Vietnam had ended, the vice president resigned, and Watergate had taken over. It was one of the most exciting years in the game’s history, the first with the designated hitter and the last before arbitration and free agency. The two World Series opponents went head-to-head above the baby steps of a dynasty that soon dwarfed both league champions. It was a turbulent time for the country and the game, neither of which would ever be the same again.

    Against all odds, he played on the 1984 U.S. Olympic hockey team as a 17-year-old, and four months later he was drafted in the first round by his hometown Chicago Blackhawks. During an illustrious 16-year career, he played for and alongside some of the greatest franchises and players in history, winning a Stanley Cup with the unforgettable 1994 New York Rangers. Years later, he coached former teammate Mario Lemieux and Sidney Crosby on the Pittsburgh Penguins before transitioning into the broadcast booth, where he has become one of the most recognizable voices of the sport. He then combined his skills as an analyst with his second passion— horse racing—and became an integral part of NBC’s coverage of thoroughbreds. Away from the spotlight, Olczyk and his wife of three decades raised four adoring children. He was respected and admired by fans, friends, and peers. Life was sweet. Then, at 7:07 pm on August 4, 2017, his entire world turned upside down. In Eddie Olczyk: Beating the Odds in Hockey and in Life, one of the biggest names in American hockey has written an inspiring and entertaining memoir of his life both on and off the ice. From shooting hundreds of tennis balls at a goal in his childhood living room to the ups and downs of his improbable hockey career to rollicking stories from the booth and the backstretch, Olczyk guides readers on his journey toward his ultimate test: a battle against Stage 3 colon cancer. For years, Olczyk’s goal was to be the best husband, father, broadcaster, and handicapper he could be. Today he has a new one: to bring as much awareness and support to those fighting cancer as he possibly can. In this emotional but often hilarious autobiography, you’ll learn why the people who know Eddie Olczyk best might describe him as “tremendously tremendous.”

    But what Adrian Hanauer, Paul Allen, Drew Carey, and Joe Roth did when they started the Seattle Sounders FC was no joke. They meticulously planned the launch of the Major League Soccer (MLS) franchise with an eye toward some lofty goals. Then they stood back in amazement as they rocketed far beyond those goals buoyed by a team that ignored its “expansion” label and a fan base that wildly embraced them. Through interviews with key executives, athletes and fans, author Mike Gastineau tells the story leading up to the launch of Sounders FC, the MLS expansion franchise whose seemingly overnight success has captured the attention of the Seattle sports community, sports and entertainment executives, soccer followers across the country and the national news media. In Sounders FC Authentic Masterpiece, readers will learn: * How a money-losing soccer club rocketed from the ranks of the minor leagues to Major League Soccer drawing sell-outs and regularly topping 50,000 fans per match. * The unique relationships between the eclectic group of seasoned sports executives, Hollywood celebrities and bar room soccer fans who came together to build a sports culture that validated Major League Soccer in Seattle and across the country. * The personalities of the players and coaches who took different paths to the team and turned their diversity into a winning team starting on opening night. Gastineau communicates to readers the entire history of events that led to the Sounders FC launch beginning with the role soccer fans played in securing a professional football stadium for the Seattle Seahawks. Also emphasized in the book are the soccer fans, bar owners and soccer subculture that existed in Seattle and was waiting to be acknowledge by mainstream professional sports leaders and media. The book also details how that soccer subculture directly impacted one of the biggest deals in MLS history, the signing of superstar Clint Dempsey in 2013. This is a story of sports, business, culture, timing, and luck. It demonstrates how powerful business people were able to check their egos and embrace their customers all for the sake of the fans, the city, and a soccer culture desperate to embrace a sports team that treated them with respect.